So I've been watching an anime you may have heard of called Attack on Titan and in the downtime between episodes I like to play the fan game on my PC. The game is far from a finished product and tough as nails, but it's free and pretty fun.

Check out my video below to see my attempt at the game. Most I can ever really manage to kill is 4.

Katawa Shoujo is a visual novel, aka dating sim, developed by Four Leaf Studio which is made up of users from 4chan. The game is completely free and can be downloaded from here: http://katawa-shoujo.com/ and doesnt really demand much to run as it uses basic sprites and text boxes. Games of this genre rarely come out in the west and so I took it upon myself to give it a go. I should point out this game does have some adult content, but this can be disabled in the options menu.

Story:

The game has you play as protagonist Hisao, an 18 year old boy who has a heart condition, as he starts his new life at a school for people who have physical disabilities. The story in Katawa Shoujo is incredibly well written and offers a genuinely moving experience. there are also multiple endings to the game, coaxing players to play the game again and maybe go down a different route and if you play your cards right you may even romance one of the female characters. One thing I did not like about this game is the fact that the name character is rather unrelateable and the fact that you can't rename him to your own name in order to engross myself within the game was rather disappointing, leaving me feel rather detached to the protagonist on occasions which took away from the experience.

I found my experience playing this game to be quite relaxing

Gameplay:

Like most visual novels, Katawa Shoujo has little to none gameplay. The player is required to make a choice from time to time in order to progress the story, but these instances are little and far and so the player will spend about 90% of their time simply reading much like a book. The game only requires the use of the mouse and the text can be set to auto advance so the player won't have to keep clicking every few seconds. I found my experience playing this game to be quite relaxing really compared to most other games and I felt it was a nice change of pace. Each play through will roughly last you 6 hours and I originally intended to only do one play through of this game but as I sunk so deep into the story I couldn't help but play the game a couple more time just to find out more about the characters I missed out on. Katawa Shoujo has excellent replay value with so many endings to be seen, offering hours of gameplay to keep you busy.

The music in this game is ridiculously good

Presentation:

Katawa Shoujo uses an anime art style which works incredibly well. The characters all look unique and vibrant and the full motion anime cutscenes were breathtaking. The music in this game is ridiculously good, really brining out the mood in every scene and doing a brilliant job of really getting you absorbed into the game. The game doesn't have any voice acting which is a bit of a shame as it would have been nice to be able to have a voice to associate with the characters but this isn't really a deal breaker. overall, Katawa Shoujo is a visually stunning game with a great sound track which makes for a great experience.

I highly recommend Katawa Shoujo

Verdict:

Strictly speaking, Katawa Shoujo isn't actually a game, it's more like an 'experience', and one I think everyone should go through atleast once. I highly recommend Katawa Shoujo to everyone to try out atleast even if you think it doesn't appeal to you. Considering that this game is completely free, you really don't have anything to lose. T reason I recommend Katawa Shoujo so highly is that despite the unrelateable protagonist, no voice acting and dense blocks of text Katawa Shoujo has alot to offer in the form of a new perspective in life which is something most games can't even come close to offering, on top of a great and immersive story and amazing visuals and a vibrant sound track. Katawa Shoujo is definitely worth checking out.

Hey everyone, this is my review of the totally amazing game Time Hollow. Time Hollow is a Japanese Visual Novel in lieu of Phoenix Wright developed for the Nintendo DS by Konami. If you are not a fan of text/story heavy games then this is definitely not the game for you and I suggest stopping here. If you are like me however and enjoy a great story woven into the tapestry of a video game then carry on reading!

*WARNING! THIS REVIEW HAS MINOR SPOILERS!!*

Story:

The story in any visual novel type game is the very backbone of the game and is what makes or breaks it, and I am pleased to say it is simply amazing. The basic plot follows the protagonist Ethan Kairos who is given a mysterious pen called The Hollow Pen by someone from the future that can open holes in time and change the past. You then discover someone else is changing history and it is up to you to go fix everything. The story is unique and unpredictable (Unlike most anime games which follow clichés and thus are very predictable)and had me gripped from the start. The characters are not exactly unique and are what you expect from anime characters but they are very likeable and relate-able. What is really interesting about this game is how much control you have over the outcome as it's possible to make things better for Ethan that when the game began!

Gameplay:

The game plays like a point and click adventure just like Phoenix Wright though one major different is the ability to change perspective. What this means is you can look around objects. For example, say there is a ball behind a box. Normally, you can't see it but in Time Hollow you can just move to the side and you will see the ball. This made the game x10 better as well as much more challenging. I can't help but wonder how much more this feature would have worked on the 3DS.

Sound/Graphics:

The sound track in this game is brilliant. The theme song is a funky J pop song which was to be expected of this type of game but what I really loved was the ambience that the music in the game creates. My only complaint about this game, and a very minor one at that, was that a few songs got annoying to hear but only because I heard them so many times while I was stuck on certain parts of the game. The graphics in Time Hollow are made up of fabulous anime styled artwork. Character designs were diverse and easy on the eyes and overall worked really well in the game.

Conclusion:

Overall, Time Hollow is an amazing Visual Novel Adventure Game. Fans of Phoenix Wright should definitely give this game a go. The game's length is fairly decent and should keep you occupied for a while so you'll definitely be getting your money's worth and this game does have a degree of replay value from all the different combinations of outcomes for the ending which is something most visual novels can't offer. I would definitely recommend this game as I believe IMHO this is one of the best games going on the Nintendo DS and is totally underrated.

Story:
So let's start off with the story. The Story in FFXIII was decent. The concept was good but (without spoiling anything) I felt it was executed poorly. Especially in how it handled the main antagonist. Granted it had a few interesting twists the story follows a typical anime cliché focusing on friendship and changing ones destiny. The characters were also very cliché however I did rather like them (Snow is my fave). Lightning is presented as the central character, appearing on the logo and box art, however (like Vaan in FFXII) she is less involved in the game's plot than Snow who is more like the main character. One final gripe is that I felt they introduced the last boss too soon in the story.
Graphics:
Graphically, this game is amazing. If I was grading it on appearance I would give it a 9. The scenery is amazing and the characters look very realistic, though still distinctly anime. This game makes great eye candy and is good for showing off great HD graphics in a game.

Gameplay:
On to gameplay. The exploration (as you would have probably heard of by now...) is very linear and doesn't open up till the last few chapters in the game, and even then it is still linear to a smaller extent (every chapter has a level cap to stop you grinding too high). The combat however is excellent. The battle system in this FF is one of the best (and hardest) out there. The paradigm shift system is great, however character customization is limited and during end game/post game all the characters are almost exactly the same in terms of skills etc.

Conclusion:
FFXIII has some great graphics and the battle system is great however a badly executed story and restricted gameplay stop's this game from shining. If you're a hardcore fan you already have this. If you're new to FF games this might be a good place to start. If you're looking for a really good JRPG, I would recommend something else like Dragon Quest IX on the DS.